Tribal Flames Zoo

Winterhalter wrote:Burn doesn't solve problems, it eliminates their source. The primary strategy of a zoo deck is to treat creatures as recursive burn spells. The burn/removal either (1) furthers their purpose in this regard by removing blockers OR (2) finishes the job once that strategy has been invalidated. Bant Charm is "getting cute" in this regard because while it is proficient in accomplishing (1), indeed arguably better at doing so than Tribal Flames because it interacts with a broader range of cards, it has zero capacity to do (2). Many, many games are decided on your ability to carry out (2) - having only 8 spells in your deck that serve this purpose makes it noticeably less effective at this. This is all in addition to obvious considerations about higher cost and greater difficulty of casting.

Robert Goulet wrote:@Corpulent Lord: These decks are already playing the maximum number of lightning bolt. It is against the rules of magic to play with more than 4 copies of any card besides a basic land.

Please enjoy my music while you ponder these thoughts.

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RG scapeshift: +4 thoughtseize, -4 helix (aven is killed too easily. deathmark could come in instead of path but finks is a real issue. also i could bring in my jittes to battle their jitte.) do most bring in blood moon against zoo decks?

elves: +2 deathmark, +2 jitte, +1 pridemage, +4 thoughtseize, -4 knight, -4 tribal flames, -1 helix. (i dont think i need this much of a sideboard so maybe the thoughtseizes stay in the board but i dont see myself losing with all that cheap removal and disruption)

big zoo: +2 deathmark +2 bant charm, -4 helix

dredge: +1 bojuka bog, -1 pridemage. ill just lose this game. doesnt sound like its very popular anyway or a good matchup with hate

I agree with andy about aven, it didnt do much for me. might as well just shut off the combo then preventing them from searching for it. im really solid on the main deck. nothing i would change except for me to play better and not get paired against AIR who t1 bloodmoons on the play

Actually, I got mixed up. You're supposed to cut Helix for Bant Charm, not Tribal Flames. You can play 11 1-drops to get the extra land, play 3 Bant Charms, or just be greedy and play 21 lands anyway.

Damping Matrix sucks because it doesn't "do anything." You need to leverage your guys - you merely back them up with ways to interact with their 2 combos. Bant Charm already interacts extremely well with both, but doesn't do damage; you don't want too many cards in your deck that don't allow you to create pressure.

Thus, I think the best way to get further angles of interaction with them is probably the much-maligned Meddling Mage, mostly because he also attacks for 2.

Canonist can also snag a game 2 win in the Living End matchup if your opponent is caught unaware. The typical boarding is -ingot chewer, +shriekmaw, though you can bet that the chewers come back if they see your canonists coming.

chris i completely disagree about the elves match up. between 4 bolt, 4 path, 3 deathmark, 4 thoughtseize, 3 pridemage, 4 tribal flames and maybe even jitte (althought this is probably too slow) i have plenty of early answers to just about anything they throw at me.

I'm not saying its terrible against elves, but it doesn't seem to give much focus to it as a tier 1 deck. With Tutor of the Reliquiery I'd try to find room for at least 1 ghost quarter and at least 1 Bojiggawhatsit bog.

Turn 4 is slow, its slow against depths too with ghost quarter, but you hope you can slow those decks down enough to get to the midgame and you can draw it its just also tutorable. I'm not saying you should or shouldn't run it, but for example if you're adding 3-4 gy hate cards, one of them should probably be bog. Same with depths, you might want to replace 1 of your hate cards with a ghost quarter.

Dredge now isn't the same dredge it used to be. With their dredge starters being rusalka, hedron crab, and glimpse the unthinkable, it is very likely that they haven't gotten to a completely dominating position by the time your Knight is active, especially in game 2 (where I assume you're on the play).

Chris is saying that if you're going to board 4 Rav. Trap, instead board 3 Rav. Trap 1 Bog, because Bog is similar to Trap when you draw it, but also tutorable, ergo functioning as more than 4 virtual hate cards. It's a more efficient use of sideboard space.

Mage does a lot of the same stuff as Canonist vs. Elves, BTW, and does it without being vulnerable to V. Shaman. Granted, it's probably worse than Canonist on balance vs. Elves, but it has applications in more matchups.

Last edited by Winterhalter on Thu Mar 18, 2010 1:20 am; edited 1 time in total

Its not that bad, but the question about how many dredge decks in the filed there are is defintely relevent. Living end isn't such a great matchup for you either. Don't forget that you can and often should burn your own creatures to remove bridge from below against dredge.